Known techniques and devices to digitally capture a rolled fingerprint from an individual require that the respective finger or fingers be physically rolled against a hard, glass or plastic, imaging surface. This requires that the person taking the image have enough skill to capture the print. This has also been recognized to be a relatively slow and error prone process.
The purpose of pressing the finger for fingers against a hard surface is to accentuate the contrast between the ridges and valleys of the fingerprint thus enhancing the quality of the data obtained during the scanning process. In addition to the amount of time the process takes, it is often considered too difficult for many types of security applications such as access control.
Alternately, fingerprints, palm prints and hand symmetry can be captured by using a plurality of video cameras. The cameras are oriented at different angles so as to focus on right and left hand non-contact placement areas. All ten digits and both palms can be captured simultaneously. Such configurations eliminate the use of a glass or plastic imaging surface and achieve contact-less capture of the finger and palm prints. Such systems, unfortunately, being contact-less do not provide the accentuated contrast achievable with traditional rolled fingerprinting.
Thus there continue to be needs for improved techniques and devices to capture rolled fingerprints. Preferably it would desirable to be able to capture multiple fingerprint images simultaneously and in a way so as to reduce acquisition errors. It would also be desirable to be able to speed the process and to reduce the level of skill required to successfully capture rolled prints. In fact, it would be desirable to be able to do so without operators or with operators having minimal training.